Road Signs on the Hydrogen Highway

Will the first hydrogen highway road signs be in German? Japanese? or 'Merican?

The first automotive refueling—or at least the first credited on a trip—is generally accepted to be Bertha Benz's stop at the Stadt-Apotheke in Wiesloch, Germany. This is not my main topic here, but worth a retelling nonetheless.

It was early August 1888, and Bertha just felt like a drive. So she gathered up her two teenage sons and set off in—or rather, on—husband Karl's three-wheel Patent Motorwagen No. 3. The daylong journey, done without her husband's knowledge and certainly not without adventure, was from their home in Mannheim to her mother's place in Pforzheim, some 64 miles away.

A blacksmith helped mend a chain. Brake linings were renewed along the way. Bertha used a hairpin to clean out a fuel line and insulated a wire with a garter. And, in the town of Wiesloch, a couple miles south of Heidelberg, she stopped at the Stadt-Apotheke (town pharmacy) for refueling. There, Bertha bought a couple liters of ligroin, a petroleum-based cleaning agent, and was on her way.

The Stadt-Apotheke is still there, along what's now called the Bertha Benz Memorial Route. Alas, you can't drive there; the pharmacy's street is now a pedestrian-only zone.

Hydrogen highway: Who'll be first?

Which brings me, roundabout I grant, to ponder who's going to be first with any semblance of a hydrogen highway, an infrastructure for fuel-cell electric vehicles. It could certainly be the U.S. because we've been at the forefront of FCEV development. But, given present indications, the first hydrogen highway road signs will more likely be in German or Japanese. And, curiously enough, though these two present contrasting situations, there is a common theme—government commitment.

The German federal government plans to have 1000 refueling stations in place by 2018. Its VES, Verkehrswirtschaftliche Energiestrategie, Transport Energy Strategy, was launched together with automakers and energy companies in 1999; Wasserstoff, hydrogen, was identified as a future fuel in 2001; a program office, NOW, was set up in 2008. Through METI (its Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry), Japan envisions 1000 refueling stations by 2025 supporting 2 million fuel-cell vehicles.

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Contrasts of Germany and Japan have interesting parallels in our own country. Japan, in many ways, is akin to Hawaii. Surrounded by water, both are largely reliant on imported energy. Both have renewable resources—wind, solar, geothermal—that are plentiful though underdeveloped at this time. Each has a highway infrastructure that's intricate, if relatively modest by the rest of U.S. standards. It would be natural for Hawaii, already dense with Japanese cars, to develop a hydrogen infrastructure and become a magnet for Japanese FCEV exports.

Germany already has a relatively high percentage of renewable energy in place. Think of California where its portfolio of geothermal, wind, solar and other renewables already produces 12 percent of the electricity; our local Southern California Edison, even higher at about 16 percent. Germany gets about 7 percent of its electricity from wind, 40 percent of this concentrated in the country's northern region surrounding Hamburg. This city has Europe's largest hydrogen refueling station in current operation. It supports 10 fuel-cell buses in daily operation and some 20 FCEVs. The German federal government has designated Hamburg as the center of emissions-free mobility for the country.

Whence the fuel-cell cars?

Of the world's automakers, GM, , , , Mercedes-Benz, , Toyota and have been particularly bullish on FCEVs. All of these, for example, are participants in the California Fuel Cell Partnership promoting FCEVs in that state. Each is also active in its home market with demonstration fleets leading to near- or mid-term plans for FCEV sales. and , for instance, have said they'd have theirs in series production by 2015; insiders suggest the latter may even have them available in Germany a couple years sooner. Projections see some 600,000 FCEVs on German roads by 2020.

A U.S. hydrogen highway?

GM suggests that an investment of $100–$200 million would support some 15 million FCEVs in Southern California, one of three seed regions, the other two being New York and Washington, D.C. It estimates that a coast-to-coast hydrogen infrastructure would cost less in today's dollars than that of the Alaska Pipeline. The company concludes that FCEV technology is commercially ready. Germany and Japan are showing that a hydrogen infrastructure is achievable. Last, GM stresses that stable government policy—as existing in these two other countries—is key to success here.

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